


And I Draw a Line (From My Heart to Yours)

by AceQueenKing



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Loyalty, Reunions, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-03 13:06:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12748911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/pseuds/AceQueenKing
Summary: She loves her lady, come what may.20 years in service, and 20 years in love.





	And I Draw a Line (From My Heart to Yours)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [belugas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/belugas/gifts).



Sabé is 14 the first time she meets Queen Amidala Naburrie.

Amidala, Queen Elect, sits on a chair in the massive old throne room. It's almost comical how tiny the girl-queen is, She's 14, thin, clearly nervous. Brown hair, curly, with light colored skin with just the barest hint of a tan. This is the woman she will live with for the next several years. And this is the woman she will fight for, paint herself in her colors, and die for if need be. 

Sabé calls her a woman but really she isn't any older than Sabé herself. Padmé Amidala Naberrie, she thinks. She has been practicing the name for hours, so she won't stutter at the time of her introduction. But no one told her how very beautiful the queen is. She looks like a china doll about her throne, like the one her grandmother has high on the mantle. Padmé Amidala Naburrie, she thinks, and she smiles even as she stutters, nervous. How can she only be 14 but look, already, like a queen?

Her father gently pushes her forward. He's a little rougher than he needs to. He's nervous too, she can tell; they'd never expected that a fisherman's daughter would rise to an office as high as that of a Handmaiden. Her sacrifice, her duty; they will both raise her family far beyond that of the poor lake county fisherman her father and her mother and their father and their mother and all their ancestors have been. "Say hi, Sabé." 

"Greetings, your Grace," she says, bowing low.  The greeting is perfect, she knows; it has been weeks of study, to learn the formal sayings fit for Theed. She gets onto her knees and keeps her eyes on the ground, even as Amidala stands. She feels a cool, small hand on her shoulder. 

"Please rise," Padmé Amidala Naburrie says, in the melodic tones of the lake county, her voice rising and falling like the tides. "I'm just Padmé, not some...goddess or something."

Sabé frowns for a second, thrown off by the way her liege treats her so informally. It feels a bit too perfect a response, a way to trap servants who might want more than a passing familiarity with their liege. A way to catch those who didn't show the proper respect and form. "Is this a test, my lady?"

"Not at all," Padmé says, and to her surprise, the young queen-elect gets on her knees with her. Standing eye to eye - or nearly, Sabé is a bit taller, but only slightly - Padmé Amidala stares through her and sees her true. She is moved by this, she must admit; Sabé has read many stories about the Naboo royalty during her study for this meeting, and in none of them did elected monarch deign to bow to a fishmonger's daughter. Her father bites back a choking sound, and she wants badly to look at him but doesn't dare. She is the queen's bodyguard, and her eyes remain on her queen.  

She wonders about this fellow lake country girl. Where did Padmé come from? She's upper class, that Sabé can tell from the accent, but she doesn't talk down to people the way many look at her family. She knows she is the best shot for ever having her family become respectable in the way Padmé's family presumably is and no doubt always has been. Padmé seems to honestly think of herself as no better than a commoner, and that thought shakes Sabé to her core, antithetical to all that she has ever known.

"I was hoping that we could be friends," Padmé almost whispers. She smiles and Sabé feels like the sun is shining on her. Her father finally stops shaking and, she realizes, she is smiling. 

"I'm Sabé," she says, standing and offering her queen her hand. Padmé takes it and shakes it, and all of the dread in her stomach is burnt away by the welcoming sun of Padmé's smile.  
  
Padmé puts her hand on her shoulder, draws a line from one side to the other. "I accept you into my service, Sabé of Lake County," she said, pressing her hand over Sabé's heart. 

"My queen," she says, softly.  "I will serve you with honor, with pride. My life is yours," she says.

Later, she will mouth the words in a more formal setting, her heart still beating fast. Someday, she will realize that her heart tells no lies. Someday, she will realize the beating of her heart foretold far more than a lifetime of service. But for now, she is only a girl, 14, a girl of petals and flowers, declaring herself in service to the crown.

\---

She is 14 and three quarters the first time she truly understands her queen.  
  
She is back in the lake county, where they were both born. Sabé looks forward to this homecoming with all her might; she enjoys Theed, loves Theed, but not in the way that she loves home. The fish always taste just a bit different, the salt from the sea just a little bit more bitter. The people look upon her not at all, which is rather the point; she is but a spear and a shield for her queen, whatsoever she requires. They are going to stay in the Chancellor's long-abandoned home in the Lake County, an ancient home in the middle of the Lake. "It's a beautiful place full of flowers," Padmé tells her. "You can watch the water as it flows into the great Sea. Perhaps we will see the boats upon the shore." 

She does not mention that Sabé's father's boat might be one of them. She does not mention that she is looking forward to it. She will, soon, understand why.

Sabé rides with her lady on a palanquin in her hometown, with the townspeople's curious eyes watching her. She watches Padmé as Padmé sits stick straight, a statue upon an imperial throne, with the worries of the people thrown all around her. They chant for her, she knows; they chant for Padmé because she is beautiful, with nary a hair out of place. She makes Sabé's heart beat so fast in ways she did not know.  She studies her liege at length during this trip, watching her work hard to maintain her posture; she keeps her body stiff, her arms closed within her sleeves. Padmé's neighbors, people she has known for years, may as well have been strangers, surrounded by curious glances and whispered demands. She cannot stop in the places of her youth, cannot move in nary a place without others being called down upon her. 

Sabé hates it.

She hates the way it hems Padmé in, hates the way it ruins a woman so vibrant as her Queen. She is a gorgeous statue but looking at her this way does not express what is special about Padmé Amidala.  To force Padmé to stay this way is to render her unthinkably dull, stiff; a statue, a doll. Sabé sees her and feels her thirst, her longing to belong.  Her desire to be in the place she knows with the people she trusts. It must be hard, she thinks, though she is not from anywhere as posh as this.

"It will be over soon, my lady," Sabé says, attempting to be kind. She reaches over to Padmé's hand and squeezes it. She cannot squeeze back, cannot even move. Padmé nods,  barely, just a slight inclination, one anyone who wasn't watching her as carefully as Sabé would not see. She can tell she wants, badly to move from the way she keeps her eyes low, her breath bated. She says only one thing to Sabé: "That is my parent's bakery,"; this one painful truth is half-mumbled under her breath. Sabé looks and sees a man covered in flour; a woman in a high-necked blue gown. Sabé sees another child, a little older, her look focused on the carriage and her eyes - sad. 

Her heart beats fast, a surge of adrenaline thrumming through her veins as she realizes that Padmé is just like her: common. Somehow, it makes her all the more special. She says nothing but Sabé can feel the pain in Padmé, the longing to call out. She waves for Padmé because the queen cannot. 

"Sabé!" barks Sio Bibble, "Calm yourself! To wave to peasants is  _not_  your role!" 

Sabé looks toward her queen, attempting to look full chastised, but she doesn't miss the secret smile that lights Padmé's eyes for a fraction of a second. The relief that floods through her veins is palpable, and, despite Bibble's rebuke, Sabé goes through the Lake County with a large smile. She watches the countryside of her youth cycle past, albeit a part she has never known, the faces unfamiliar. Sabé feels a sudden pang when she sees the fishmonger's market. She swallows the lump in her throat, but she does not see her father nor her mother hawking their wares. She misses them, but can't imagine how the queen feels. 

"Thank you, Sabé," Padmé whispers when Sio Bibble is suitably distracted, rewarding her for her kindness. 

When they finally arrive at the Lord Chancellor's private villa, Padmé is a different person. She grins and runs and even plays, and for a moment, even Sabé forgets the pressing world around her, giggling and laughing and loving.

Padmé disrobes her clothing and Sabé is startled to see the queen is but a girl after all. She's not perfect in body; a knick there, a scratch there. She changes into a swimsuit and some part of Sabé's idealization of her shifts and changes form; "The last one in is a rotten blarth aak egg!" Padmé shouts, and Sabé runs, naked as the day she came, into the water, where both Sabé and Padmé are, for one brief afternoon, neriads.

Padmé splashes and runs and plays and giggles and laughs and lives and wants nothing more than to play in the hot sun and salty sea with her friends forever. Sabé watches, eyes darting quickly; jealous. She isn't like the other girls, who all love Padmé as a big sister, a queen to be worshiped from afar. It's Sabé who is just slightly older, Sabé, who is chosen as her double; Sabé, her partner, her sister. She does not have words for this feeling, not yet, but she knows she loves Padmé differently than Eritaé, than Hollé. She is alone in her fervent devotion, her constant striving in their lessons to be better, be stronger. She will be the best for her queen, she will be the one by whose shield her queen survives or falls. 

She will think back on this day for many years, her hands aching when she remembers how close she was to Padmé, their twin bodies sunning. She will wish she had told her then what she meant to her. She will think of holding her hand and smiling without worries. 

She will think of the war that came later, and she will shake. 

\---

She is 15 the first time she becomes Padmé,  her queen. She stares at Padmé's wardrobe, uncomfortable with the knowledge that any one of these ceremonial gowns would cost more than a year of her family's wages. Or, what they had been, before her service. Now that she is a handmaiden, her family is provided for; her father works, but no longer has to. Their food, home, and schooling is all paid for by the government, as a motivation for her to remain in the queen's service despite the dangers that face them.

And with the number of meetings they've had with the Trade Federation, Sabé is well aware there are a lot of dangers. 

Padmé is oblivious to the privilege and giggles, pulling different dresses out of her dresser. "Let's see...I think we should put you in mother of pearl, Sabé. Your skin is so pale, you're going to shine like the moon goddess herself." She tugs at Sabé's clasp on her robe - they have all seen each other naked, have all bathed together, dressed together, and as a result, have both long been desensitized to mere nudity from a fellow handmaiden - and it flutters to her feet. 

There's a new and different feeling - or perhaps merely an old one that she recognizes better now - as Padmé's soft fingers sweep her shoulders, tugging the long, bejeweled gown over her shoulders. She's studious, focus almost handmaiden-like herself as she slowly brushes her fingers over the clasps, slowly snapping her imposter into her outfit. Sabé is almost embarrassed by the way her eyes stay on Padmé, watching her without shame and with a strange new hunger as Padmé concentrates on preserving a modesty Sabé doesn't feel.

Padmé dabs her fingers into her ceremonial make-up, painting Sabé's already pale face bone white. She has always been pale; had she not been chosen to serve her lady, perhaps, she would have joined her father on the boats, would have felt the sun's rays flittering through her skin, giving her the darker burn of her father. But instead, she stays indoors, a willing prisoner to a rather beautiful queen. Padmé is all the sun she needs. 

Padmé dabs a bit of red from a pot of lipstick and gently brushes it over her lips. "You look like a queen," Padmé says, pride in her voice. Sabé turns and looks into a mirror, and barely recognizes herself. She is dressed every bit as a privileged lady, garnished with pearls instead of guts and glitter instead of entrails. She has never looked more amazing in her life. It amazes her that despite all that she lacks - and she knows she lacks much in comparison with Padmé - she is a goddess. Sabé is merely her bodyguard, but there's a great deal of honor in being called to serve someone as kind and beautiful as her queen.

"What do you think?" Padmé asks, leaning her head on her neck in a way that makes Sabé's stomach writhe with a hunger she can barely name but clearly, achingly feels. 

"I am what my lady wills me," she says, and she means it. 

Later, she will ask her lady (no longer a queen but always, always her lady) to sit regally and will do worship upon her, as is her service. But for now,  Sabé is a girl, not yet a woman, and she is hungry for life. Later, she will wonder if this was the beginning of the end, in her darkest moments. Later, she will wonder if this was the beginning of her finest moment.

\---

She is  15 and two quarters the first time she kills for her queen.

She has feared it ever since she has been chosen for her ladies service, but when the moment comes, she doesn't hesitate. Her Queen, garbed in the garb of a handmaiden, takes one room a bit too slow as they fight for their homeland, and one of the Neimoidians raises their blaster, and points it, square at her Queen.   

Sabé shifts her aim to the right, the Queen's dress somewhat affecting her ability to aim with it's long and bulky sleeves. She is taking back Padmé's palace,  her queen's rightful place. Sabé has no time for sorrows nor fury; she pulls out her gun and she aims and she strikes the Neimoidian square in the chest. The  Neimoidian goes down. The Neimoidian does not get back up. 

"Thank you, my liege," Padmé says, smiling. She winks at Sabé and Sabé smiles, then they resume the assault on their castle, laying down droid after droid after droid. Theirs is the homeland, the gun, the spark; theirs is the victory. 

Later, she will think it's odd that she was not scared. That her hand never shook. Later, she thinks she was only able to do it because of her queen, the woman whose clothes she wears, and the woman whose heart she loves. She will do anything for her best friend. 

\- - - 

As Sabé becomes a woman, things fall apart. All of the girls fall apart. There are five girls and all five, miraculously, make it through Padmé's term in office, and then another, but then one by one, by the time she is 19, each one has left. Even her. 

Yané leaves first, reassigned to Jamilla, training the four new girls who take the place of Padmé's handmaidens. Then Saché and Eirtaé, both to better opportunities, and Hollé to a husband and a child, soon only Sabé is left by her lady's side. She has planned to stay by her ladies side, the last and most loyal of her handmaidens. The others have seen Padmé as a big sister, a beloved friend...but Sabé, though she does not already have the words, sees her as something more. 

And then she gets a holo from home, her father's voice shaking in a thick and heavy accent. Her sister has grown sick. Her sister is dying. Her mother needs help. The money from the state is no longer enough.

"Go," Padmé says, and though Sabé regrets it, she does. She goes home. Her sister makes it, but will never work again, her body too delicate for the shock of the coldness of Lake Tumere. As abruptly as it began, Sabé's career as a handmaiden, a bodyguard, is over.  It takes time, but she loses touch with Padmé, gradually, because being with her is painful but being her friend without being by her side is unbearable, too close to betrayal. 

Instead, Sabé spends a year in the ice-cold waters of the Tumere. Her hands burn and crack from the constant exposure to the salt water, and the fish are cold and slimy in her fingers as she presses them to her father's hand. 

At one point, she takes over the stall and sells a fish to a girl with brown eyes who reminds her of nothing so much as her friend, long lost. Her hand stays on the girl's hand too long and she leaves, turning back to look at Sabé oddly.  

She swallows thick bile, her hands shaking. She has never quite had a name to the emotion toward Amidala, but she recognizes it, suddenly, with a heat on her face, and before she can stop herself she is dialing Padmé's private holo-call. 

It has been many months, but Sabé cannot deny any longer that she misses Padmé. She presses the number in her holo-phone, well aware that this is something new, to reach out to her from this great distance.   To her relief, Padmé picks up right away; Sabé can't help but smile at the sound of her voice; her lady, her Padmé. 

"Sabé," Padmé says, in the voice of a woman too long used to being far from home. Already her clipped lake accent has become more rounded, more Theedian, surrounded, as she is, on Coruscant. Sabé cannot imagine living on Coruscant, in a concrete jungle made of car-filled skies. "I missed you."

Sabé swallows, a heavy truth trying to fly out of her mouth, like the mischevious pixie from the water goddess' mouth when she dared to lie about the whereabouts of her fish-son. Like the pixie, she longs to tell truths, not lies, which makes it even more dangerous.  _I love you. I miss you._

 _"Sabé? Are you there?"_  Padmé leans into the cradle of her holo; she can't help but stare at her eyes, longing with something that Sabé prays she isn't the only one to feel. 

"Sorry, yes. Just a long day." Sabé shakes her head, waves."Are you okay?"

"Yes." Padmé sighs, quickly and softly. It's subtle, but Sabé is well attuned to her lady's moods. "Well - no," Padmé says because she is scrupulously honest. Sabé doubts she could tell a lie if she wanted to.

"Whatever is the issue, my lady?" Sabé asks, falling into the more formal structure she practiced. It is always a safety for her, the words a portal to a different world that she once occupied - with Padmé by her side. 

"Cordé - she didn't make it. Whenever I Look away I can't - I can't stop thinking about it," Padmé says, and Sabé's guts churn. Cordé, her replacement. From Le Emite, the mountains to the south of her and Padmé's homeland. She had talked to Sabé often when she was tutoring the girl to take her place of the home, of the sisters and brothers she left behind.

Now she would be going home to them, in a box.  A hot tear dabs at the corner of her eyes but Sabé refuses to blink, not wanting the tear to fall. She will be strong for her lady; it is her duty, and, more than that, it is the only kindness she can give to her suffering friend. She does not like to see Padmé sad; Padmé, who is so special. Padmé, who makes her heart beat fast and her pulse sing, is looking at her like the world has been ripped apart. 

"I'm sorry, my lady," Sabé says, and she shakes her head again. Her eyes are wet but she refuses to allow the tears to fall. She knows if she does, Padmé will cry too, and that - oh that she cannot bear.

"Just - tell me about home," Padmé says, her voice rich with longing. Sabé does it, of course. She loves Padmé, and Sabé could never deny her anything. She tells Padmé about all the ways that Naboo is still home; she tells her about the fish, about Sabé's family, about Lake Tumere. Sabé talks about the fish she sees darting around, the pleasing colors flashing against her hands. Sabé traces for her the color of the mountains, the ungainly snore of the Shaak her neighbor keeps in the stall behind their home.

Padmé listens and murmurs approvals. It's expensive, but Sabé stays on the phone with Padmé for hours, until her breaths gently sync with Padmé's own in the soft dawn of her bedroom. 

She wants to ask if she can return to her ladies' service, but doesn't, fearing it will come off as wanting only a job, when what she wants for her lady is far more intimate.  Later, Padmé will tell her how desperately she wanted Sabé to return to her. Later, Sabé will regret not asking.

\---

Sabé is 27 when she demands to return to her ladies' service. 

Padmé is in distress. She seethes every night on their daily call, frustrated as Supreme Chancellor Palpatine stymies everything that their culture stands for. Padmé survives threat after threat while Sabé slings fine fish and the occasional kelp-cake from Tumere. Padmé is hesitant to take her away from your family, knowing it will hurt them, but she sees the way that Padmé is looking, lately, exhausted, wan; Padmé looks like she has a secret, one that's killing her, and Sabé wants, so badly, to try to help her. In the end, the choice to come is simple. Her lady is in danger and so she comes.

"Sabé," she says, still looking the same after all these years:  strong, but soft; powerful, but humble. Naboo's greatest senator holds Sabé's hands. She smiles, her fingers threading through Padmé's. The touch forces both their hearts to beat like hummingbirds. 

"I'm glad you're alright, my lady," Sabé says. She wishes she could offer more than that, wish that she could say that if Padmé were with her full time, she would always be safe for nothing, nothing, would be worth fighting for more than her queen. She presses a hand on Padmé's shoulder, smiling, smiling like the sun, unable to hide her affection for her.

"And I am glad to see that you are well as well," Padmé says, tapping her cheek lightly. "It will give me great peace of mind that you will lead things while I am...While I am gone. Force knows what I'd have to do without you,"  she says.  She is in danger from the Separatists, yet again, and Chancellor Palpatine has been making a great deal of fuss about her needing to go into hiding for her own protection. But Padmé - as well as the other senators who share her persuasions - knows that now is not a time she can show weakness. 

Padmé submits, but, as always, has an ace she holds in her hands.  Sabé is an excellent copy of her queen. They both still look alike enough, she knows; nearly sisters. She looks different in some ways -Sabé's eyes aren't as wide and expressive, Padmé is a bit shorter. It will be enough to fool Palpatine, she hopes, and with Palpatine, the universe. At last as far as this one vote. Even if Palpatine catches on, of course, he could hardly criticize Naboo's decision to use one of their oldest and richest cultural traditions. 

She squeezes her tight before reluctantly leaving her in Skywalker's control.  He seems nice enough, Sabé decides. A Jedi, the supposed chosen one, though Sabé does not know what that means, and, she suspects, neither does her lady's young Jedi friend. Her lady clearly likes him, and, worse, he clearly likes her. This makes Sabé's insides tighten, swirling around one another. There's something more there, Sabé thinks, between them, but she doesn't feel too threatened, certainly not enough to bring it up to her lady -after all, Jedi are forbidden to love. Sabé pities them for that. 

Later, she will regret that decision. Later, she will feel like she has let her lady down, has failed to save Padmé from the most insidious threat of them all: herself.

But for now, the ruse is a success, and if Padmé's cheeks blush crimson when she comes back to Sabé, her hands pulling tight around her neck are enough to make Sabé forget.

\---

Sabé is 27 and three-quarters when Padmé confides her secret to Sabé.  It happens over tea; persimmon (Padmé's pick), with cranberry cookies (Sabé's). Sabé has come to catch up for a lunch meeting because her lady has requested it, but she can tell from the way Padmé moves that something special is going on, and this is no mere lunch. Padmé is excited, visibly nervous. It is not very like Padmé, and Sabé feels a rich tension burning in her gut. Dare she hope? Does Padmé know the way she feels? Will they finally, at long last, be together? 

Sabé welcomes it. 17 years is a long time to hold a secret, but she has because she has never quite fond the time or the words. They well behind her lips but she cannot pour them out, and instead tries to make smalll talk on more innocent matters. 

"Sabé, I have to tell you something," Padmé says, and her stomach tightens.  _Here we go_ , she thinks, and she puts down the cup because she does not trust that hr hands will not shake. 

"What is it, Padmé?" She asks, softly. She places her hands in her lap. She tries to look beautiful, to be a happy memory that Padmé will recall with pleasure for many years.

"You mustn't tell anyone," Padmé says, looking her in the eye, deadly serious. "Promise me." 

"Of course," she breathes, nervous now; this is not expected, not what she wanted. Their relationship would be normal, not a secret. It is well known that handmaidens often find their way into their queen or king's bedchambers. This is something new, something dangerous, and Sabé frowns, clutching her hands together under the table. 

"I'm married," Padmé blurts out, pulling a thin leather cord from her neck and showing her a Japor snippet. Sabé smiles, buts she is furious at Anakin Skywalker: furious at putting her lady through this, furious at him for breaking his vows. It is a forbidden relationship for good reason, and Sabé is furious more for how he makes her lady keep a dangerous secret than for how he has stolen her lady from her. But then she looks at Padmé, sees the worry in her eyes, the fear that perhaps Padmé will not accept her, and she does as she always has: she reaches out, to comfort her lady.

"Oh, Padmé," she says, reaching a hand out to her friend. She tries to steady her, to promise she will be there, no matter what. "Congratulations," she says, swallowing the bile that burns her throat. 

"There's more," Padmé says, and smiles, but the smile is tearful, worried. "I'm pregnant."

She squeezes her hand, saying nothing for a long moment. Padmé looks down and Sabé rises, scraping her chair back and moving closer to her lady, so she can place her arms around Padmé's neck.

"Sabé?" She asks, and for the first time, Sabé hears fear in Padmé's voice. 

"Then we have much to do, my lady," she whispers. "I will help you get what is needed."

"Thank you," Padmé says, her fingers curling around Sabé's. "I do not know what I would do without you."

Later, Padmé will find out, though not by Sabé's choice. Later, Sabé will regret it. 

\---

Sabé is 28 when she returns home. 

It's only for one week, helping her father as he recovers from surgery. She promises her lady that she won't abandon her, that Padmé, eight months pregnant, will not be without her lady-in-waiting;  Sabé calls her as soon as she reaches the hospital. She talks to Padmé constantly that first day, listening to Padmé talk about Palpatine's usurpation of power, about how much Padmé misses Anakin, about how jealous she is that Sabé will get a week of great, Nubian food that Padmé cannot share. And every day is like the last, another day, another long conversation, until the day that she doesn't speak to her. 

At one point, she stops answering. At first, it is a minor worry, then a major one, then one so large Sabé feels it every moment, pounding through her brain. In desperation, she tries to have Jamilla contact her, but even Naboo's newest queen cannot break through the sudden ice surrounding her best friend and so much more.   
  
She is told to sleep but cannot, and instead, stares out the windows, at the mournful clouds that creep across the sky. As day breaks and dawn pierces the cloudy veil, Sabé watches the day begin to explode in slow motion; early in the morning, the word comes in that the Jedi order is destroyed. She thinks of Anakin Skywalker, dying on the floor of the temple for saving younglings. She feels a strange sympathy for the man, though she knows that Padmé's love affair with the Jedi would never end any other way. Anakin may have loved her, but a Jedi could never love her as much as she should be loved. She just prays that Anakin and Padmé's secret died with him. 

And her friend's silence is still consuming. She watches the Jedi Temple burn, live on TV, and she can think of nearly nothing else but how this will affect her lady. She wonders if Anakin thought of his own children before he fell to the Sith's blade. She wonders if Padmé knows yet. She is afraid.  She starts trying to find tickets to get back to Coruscant.

She wants to be there for her. It is not right, she thinks, this silence; it is unlike Padmé, and that scares Sabé more than anything. She loves her lady because she is so exhuberantly herself.  Sabé thinks about all the stories her mother has about people falling into despair due to a lover's death and Sabé worries Padmé has become inspired by the sun goddess, by the River-daughter. She cannot eat. Her stomach is sick. She fans out her skirts, watching the wrinkles reform, and tries to hold onto her lunch.

As the sun finally bows down over the Gungan's reef, Sabé knows. She can't express why or how she knows, but she does. She knows Padmé is gone. Somehow, the universe seems just a bit colder, a bit less welcoming. It is a small difference to the universe, which makes it all the more devastating for her.

Sabé spends the night in tears. 

By the time Jamilla calls her to the castle in the early morning, saying she wanted to see Sabé herself, as a gesture of respect, Sabé feels numb. She ignores the queen and, instead, stares at the handmaidens who flank her. She wonders which of them holds their queen in a secret flame in their heart, as she did for her own. 

"I wanted to tell you in person, you have that right," Jamilla says as Sabé wipes still-forming tears from your face. She thinks of her lady and she knows, she knows know, she should have never left her side.

"She's - isn't she?" She says, an important word omitted because she can not say it, not just yet.  She knows it but, just like her feelings, the words lie stuck in her throat, held captive by her heart.

"Yes, she is gone," Jamilla says. Then: "I'm sorry." Then: "You served well." 

It all rings hollow.   
  
\---

When she is 28 and two halves, Sabé falls apart. 

She goes to her lady's funeral and she carries her queen's body and she prays, prays, prays for Padmé's soul. 

She doesn't want to go, but she does. It's the final, perfect proof of her failure, a final goodbye she is not at all prepared to say. As Padmé's chief handmaiden, she has ceremonial duties. She is the cleaner, the caretaker. SHe holds her Padmé's cold, cold form, her stomach still swollen - they tried to save the babies - and she holds her hand as she paints her face.

She feels like nothing so much as wax. Truthfully, in death, she looks not at all like herself.  Perhaps it is due to all the fire falling out of her. 

Sabé covers her in a blue gown that shimmers like the lake Padmé loved, all those years ago. Sabé covers her with flowers native to their homeland, a silent patriotic act: Lillies of the river valleys, tigers of the south sea. She presses heavy, cold cream upon her cheeks to mask the pallor of death and a soft, pink color upon her lips. 

Her eyes and ears burn as her lungs nearly burst with the effort of not sobbing over her best friend's corpse. "I love you," Sabé says, too late, too late. Later, she will realize that this moment has been planned from the very beginning. Later she will understand why the world seems darker without Padmé in it. Later she will find her again, and she will love her. 

But that is not now. 

\---

Sabé is 29, and Sabé is a rebel. 

It's taken Sabé a long time to agree to do this, but she has.  She has been hesitant to get involved in this war; she has been in war before, and she has seen the cost of it.  She thinks of the war she won as a child, every time she fires her blaster. She thinks of  - 

_Padmé running ahead, dressed as a warrior while Sabé drags her feet in Padmé's high gowns, your feet nearly ripping her dresses. Sabé watches Padmé as she zigs, then Sabé zags; her lady ducks one second too slow from a droids gun and Sabé fires, hitting it right in the reactor._

_Padmé turns toward Sabé, eyes relieved and she winks. " Don't slow down, my lady."_

Sabé thinks of her when she fights, not against droids now but nameless men who take orders without ever thinking of them. They become droids to Sabé; like droids, they are devoid of personality and any sort of creed beyond to kill or be killed. She is better at killing them than being killed. 

She thinks her lady would approve of this. Some in the Rebellion agree with her, she knows.  She can see the approval in Mon Mothma's eyes when she dresses for battle, her outfit crimson and gold in the traditional Nabian colors. She keeps the memory of her lady alive, her hair held high in one of Padmé's favorite styles. She isn't a handmaiden anymore, but she honors her queen in memoriam. On her lips, she wears the scar of remembrance. 

Padmé is both her biggest inspiration and her chief regret.

"You look like an avenging angel," Mon Momthma murmurs. Sabé doesn't bother to correct her; that the only angel there ever was died before this war was born. 

\---

Sabé is 31 when she sees her lady's ghost. 

She is sitting in a rebel command station on Hoth, her hair held up in war braids. Sabé swallows as she approaches, blinking, praying; she expects Padmé to vanish but she doesn't. She is solid and real and for a moment Sabé convinces herself she is seeing ghosts, but then Padmé looks up and smiles. 

"Sabé?" She says, her voice cracking. "Is that you?" 

"You're dead," she says because no one has ever told her differently. "I buried you."

"No, no," she says, and she smiles. "I am here, Sabé, I am here."  
  
"How?" Sabé chokes; her voice sounds strangled and it worries her for a moment that she doesn't understand how it sounds so bad but then a splash of hot water hits her cheek and she realizes with some shock that she is crying. 

"It's a long story," Padmé says, but she looks confused. "Didn't they tell you? I asked Obi-Wan - "  
  
"No," she says, sounding strangled, and then, she can resist no more, and luckily Padmé has the same idea. They cuddle together, holding on to one another, crashed against one another. They hold one another for several moments until Sabé is convinced her lady is hale and hearty and whole, but even then she holds on, afraid to let go. Padmé doesn't seem to mind, even if they're getting strange looks from nearly everyone. (But Mon - who stands in the back of the mess hall, is looking particularly pleased with them.) 

They hold hands, and Padmé says, "I'm happy we're together," and Sabé hums,  because she can't say anything for fear this is just a dream. 

"Will you tell me now?" Sabé asks when her voice comes to her, and she hears the fear in her voice and catches Padmé wince at it. Her small hands stroke Sabé's hair and she nods.

"Yes, I think that is long overdue," Padmé says, and then she tells Sabé a story she can barely believe; a tale of a woman who fought, a man who fell, and the broken pieces of the galaxy trying to knit themselves back together. Sabé's annoyed the Jedi didn't think it important to update her, but she is so relieved to be with Padmé that she doesn't dwell on it. 

"You'll stay here, won't you, my lady?" She asks, afraid to ask what she really wants: _you'll stay with me, right?_

But Padmé understands her. Padmé says, "Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere. I can't leave you again."   She gathers Sabé's hands into her own and Sabé feels a flood of heat in her belly for the first time in years, and all the questions flood her veins and for the first time in a long time, she feels those emotions flood into her, overwhelming her. 

"I'm sorry," Padmé says quietly, breaking the spell. "I didn't want to make you suffer."  

"About what?" She says, tilting her head. "My lady, if anything I am sorry I could not be by your side...You've lost so much." She doesn't list them, but she knows: friends, lover, children. She has not asked Padmé about the children but she is afraid to, doesn't want to bring up a pain that Padmé might not feel ready to share. 

"I should have talked to you sooner, about Anakin. About everything." Padmé rests her head on Sabé's shoulder like it is the most natural thing in the world, and Sabé's heartbeat betrays her. "I knew you weren't thrilled when I told you about us, but I knew you wouldn't judge me for it and you'd help me and now...now here we are." Padmé sniffles. Sabé feels something wet on her shoulder and pulls her arms around her lady, holding her tight.

"My lady, I am always here for you, no matter what your choice." She presses her hand to Padmé's side, squeezes her tight. "I am yours, my lady."

"And I yours," Padmé says, her voice drowsy. "I hope you know that."

"I do," Sabé says, her heart so fast she feels she must have become a hummingbird, like the Queen who wanted to reach the Sky above Theed in her mother's tales. Sabé believes Padmé tells her true, and for the first time in years, Sabé can smile again.  

\---

 Sabé is 32 when she kisses her lady.

It happens suddenly; she and Padmé are fighting against the empire, bodies of stormtrooper stacking up on the floor. They stand in the pool of their victory, foreheads pressed to one another, and suddenly Sabé realizes that there were never words that she needed to tell Padmé, that Padmé has always been right there and that if she wants her, she has but to act on it. Suddenly, twenty years of waiting seems twenty years too long, and Sabé cannot wait another minute without letting Padmé know how she feels. 

She leans forward just a bit and Padmé does too, their lips coming together in a chaste kiss. It does not stay chaste for long; Sabé presses her hands into Padmé's hair and she moans, melting into Sabé's arms. That feels more right than anything; after all, they have spent many years trying to play the same person. They disappear into one another, their lips softly exploring as their hands caress one another, in comfort, in pain. 

Then a blaster bolt breaks the silence between them; a stormtrooper who has aimed for Padmé but, as usual, has missed. Vader, Sabé thinks, should get his stormtrooper's eyes checked or those helmets replaced; so few of these men seem able to move worth a damn. 

She doesn't hesitate, doesn't turn away from Padmé as she lifts her gun. To shoot is not so hard, she thinks, not when one has a clear idea of why they're fighting. She presses her finger on the trigger and she fires. The stormtrooper goes down; she's struck him through the black undersuit of his armor, which is strong but - not to laserfire.

"Hot," Padmé mouths, and Sabé laughs, and then they kiss again. Her lady's body melts into her own; they have always been two halves of the same locket, and now, Sabé thinks, they have found they fit one another perfectly.  It's almost a fairytale, she thinks; a Queen and her handmaiden. But then she smells the taste of laser fire and hears the shout of another company of their fellow rebels as they fight in the corridor ahead of them, and she knows this is nothing quite like a fairytale. Padmé gives her look and runs and Sabé follows, hot on her heels, eager to rescue their fellow rebels and, more importantly, protect her lady. 

The war as a whole does not go away; they are together but Palpatine and Vader loom large in the background. But Sabé is with Padmé, and, in the end, that is what matters.

\---

She is 33 when she marries Padmé.

It is Padmé's second marriage but Sabé's first. Nearly the entire rebel base and the rebellion aside comes out for it.  Bail Organa, even, makes a rare appearance, little Leia in tow. It's hard not to be charmed by Leia; her daughter, now, too, and she is so quick and so clever, like her mother. Sabé looks at her and she seems Padmé in everything the little girl does; Padmé is fond of her as well, and though she can never reveal the truth to her secret daughter, Sabé vows to try to make sure that Padmé gets out to Alderaan see her once in a while, at least. It is truly regrettable that they cannot live on Alderaan, their sister-colony, but Vader, Sabé knows, would find them all too quickly there. 

And they both know how quickly, for Vader, love turns to hate. 

Little Luke is even smuggled in with a desert rose named Beru, with Obi-Wan escorting her. Sabé can tell Beru isn't used to being in this sort of situation - she's visibly uncomfortable, constantly staring out into space, as if amazed she could cross it. Luke, too, stares into space, a curiosity in his eyes. 

"Hello Luke," Padmé says, her bridal dress - nothing as opulent as what her lady should have, but white as snow - kneeling down to look at her little boy. Like Leia, he does not know and will not know. Luke Lars will grow up oblivious to his wonderful mother, a pain Sabé feels all too acutely. But Luke, she knows, will have to be even more hidden than Leia, for his likeness to his father is all too similar; Vader would see him, would know. Sabé is amazed Obi-Wan even convinced Beru to bring him out here.

"Hi, " Luke says, turning his face to Beru's skirts. Sabé knows Padmé well enough to see the hurt that flashes through her eyes as her son looks at her like a stranger. She steers Padmé's arm, turning her away from the boy and towards Obi-Wan, who hugs her tight.

The years have not been kind to him. Padmé, in truth, has weathered Anakin's betrayal better; perhaps it is Sabé making sure she sleeps and eats, or perhaps it is her sheer will to live, to fight on so someday she will not have to pretend not to know her children. Sabé grabs his hand and shakes it, a polite greeting between warriors, but Padmé embraces him, and Sabé cannot help but smile that Obi-Wan holds her back. It would be so easy, she knows, for Padmé to have given up, to have chosen death a hundred times through the war. The fact that she hasn't - that she is here, surviving and fighting - is all the proof Sabé needs that Padmé is the most dedicated and terrifying woman she has ever met.

And Sabé feels incredibly lucky to be marrying her.

"Thank you," Padmé says, "for everything." 

"You do not need to thank me," he says, quietly. "It is a pleasure to know you are still fighting, my lady. And you of course, Sabé." 

"You as well, Master Obi-Wan," Sabé says, with a bow, before making her way through the crowd. 

They talk to countless people before the ceremony begins; the night whirls together as they meet many people, from rebels who serve with them to older warriors who are still, in some way, keeping on the fight. Mon Mothma hugs them both before she marries them. Sabé's hands shake through the entire ceremony, so afraid that she will wake up at any moment and Padmé will be gone, vanished into the ether as she had once. 

But Sabé has lost her once, and Sabé will not lose her again. Sabé shivers as Padmé squeezes her hands, and declares her vows. "I, Padmé Amidala Naberrie," she says, and Sabé swallows, and thinks of all the people and places that have brought them together like this. 

She loves her so much, she does not hesitate when Mon asks her to make the same vow. She traces their fingers in red silk, an old custom of their people, and Sabé rejoices as she sees the red soul-thread bind them both. 

And then Mon says the words that they both, Sabé thinks, have ached to hear. "Kiss the bride," she says, simple and true, and Sabé tosses off Padmé's veil and kisses her passionately, lovingly; she kisses her as she deserved to be kissed and as the entire Red Squadron hoots and cheers at them.  

"Are you ready to go?" Padmé asks; Sabé and her wife (her  _wife!)_ get a small honeymoon, not much, but enough. Though the risk is not insubstantial, they have chosen to return to Naboo. The danger is somewhat lessened by their decision to return not to Theed - but to the Gungan city below the waves instead. Jamilla, she knows, has already arranged their passage. 

It's a funny thing, her honeymoon; together, she travels with Padmé to persuade the gungans to rejoin them in the war effort. Sabé is optimistic that they will be successful - not only have Palpatine's racist policies unfailingly angered the Gungan chieftain, but beyond that, she will bring Padmé with her, and Padmé's voice is like the sun. She will convince the Gungan; of that, Sabé has no doubt. She has done it once, and Padmé's passion could make any lesser man melt. 

Together, they will travel to their homeland; together, they will reunite with old allies, and together they will resurrect an army that once freed a mid-world and use it to bring peace back to their home. 

"I am ready to go with you, yes," Sabé says. "With you always."

And she means it. 

Now, she has her wife by her side. Now, she will follow her unto the ends of the galaxy. And now, they will free the entire galaxy, starting with their homeland.

There are still many dangers - Vader, the Emperor, and just about a  million other threats - but there's no place Sabé will ever want to be, besides at her ladies side. 

 


End file.
